Da Vinci (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Da Vinci, the Japanese magazine named after history's most curious mind, has spent more than three decades asking a simple question: what are people reading, and why does it matter? Launched in 1994 by Recruit Co., with Yoshio Kimura as its first publisher, the magazine set out to cover books the way music magazines cover albums. It treated reading not as an obligation but as a lifestyle. What made it unusual was who it invited to that conversation. The covers featured popular young actors, musicians, and celebrities, each photographed holding the book they love best. In May 2026, Kadokawa Corporation announced that Da Vinci would end publication after 32 years, with its final issue set to release on the 6th of October 2026. That announcement raises a question worth sitting with: what exactly did Da Vinci build over those decades, and what will disappear when the November issue closes?

• 2. A Literary Magazine Reimagined

  ›

  Yasuhiro Nagazono served as editor-in-chief at Da Vinci's launch, and Toshiaki Ichikawa handled art direction. Together they shaped a publication that did not look or feel like the literary journals that came before it. Da Vinci introduced not only general novels but also manga and light novels, treating them as equally worthy of serious attention. That was a deliberate break from the conventions of the literary press. The magazine ran essays by well-known figures, printed reader-submitted columns, and organized questionnaires. Special features examined the relationship between books and the wider world from angles that general-interest magazines rarely took. New paperbacks, new books, and new comics all received coverage in the same issue, side by side. Da Vinci also served a practical function: it carried information on how readers could approach authors for book signings, making it a resource for the devoted fan as much as the casual browser.

• 3. Inventing a Genre

  ›

  One of the most concrete claims Da Vinci can make is that it created the manga essay genre. The magazine sought out Haruko Ohtagaki and Saori Oguri before either had established a public profile, and the work it commissioned from them became a bestseller. From that collaboration, a format called "Manga Essay Theater" was born. The manga essay is a hybrid form: personal reflection and autobiography told through sequential art, neither purely comic nor purely prose memoir. Before Da Vinci championed it, the format had no recognized home. The magazine's willingness to back unknown creators and treat subculture-oriented work as serious publishing created the conditions for that genre to take root. Da Vinci was owned by Media Factory before Kadokawa acquired that company; the editorial culture that nurtured the manga essay survived that ownership change.

• 4. The Literature Prize

  ›

  In 2006 the Da Vinci Literature Award gave its Grand Prize to Azusa Maekawa for a work titled "Yo-chan's Night." That same year the Excellence Award went to two authors and the Editor's Special Prize to Mitsuru Nakagawa for "POKKA POKKA." The prize accepted novels running between 100 and 200 pages on 400-character manuscript paper, and it welcomed any genre. Winners received one million yen in prize money, and the winning work was published by Media Factory. The contest drew enough entries to run for seven editions before closing in 2012. In that time it recognized authors including Asako Takiwa, whose "rabbit bread" took the 2007 Grand Prize, and Junjo Shindo, whose "Map man" won in 2008. Readers also participated directly: a separate Readers' Choice Award ran alongside the editorial prizes. The final year of the original prize, 2012, produced no Grand Prize winner, suggesting the editors found no submission that met their standard rather than bending the criteria.

• 5. A New Prize for Book Stories

  ›

  When the Da Vinci Literature Award ended, the magazine did not simply retire the contest. In 2013 it launched a successor called the Da Vinci Book Story Grand Prize, narrowing the focus specifically to "stories related to books." The word length shifted upward, to entries of 250 to 350 pages of 400-character manuscript paper. The cash prize remained one million yen. What changed most was the selection process. Final decisions were made not just by the editorial department but also by a panel of 100 reader judges and bookstore staff. That structure put booksellers in the room as literary arbiters, reflecting the magazine's philosophy that readers and retail workers were trustworthy critical voices. The 2013 Grand Prize went to Namiya Fujiishi for "First love goes beyond the slope," and the 2014 Grand Prize to Senya Mihagi for "Bookstore with God Mahoroba no Natsu." The Readers' Choice Award in 2013 went to Yanagasawa Kada for "Iware Kita."

• 6. Book of the Year

  ›

  Starting in 2001, Da Vinci published an annual Book of the Year ranking that was deliberately not a sales chart. Votes came from book critics, bookstore employees, Da Vinci survey members, and users of a reading-tracking service called Reading Meter, drawing on readers across Japan. The 2010 overall winner was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Hiro Arikawa won the overall prize in 2011 and the novel category again in 2012, the same year Hiromu Arakawa's Silver Spoon took the male-oriented comics category and Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru took the female-oriented comics category. Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama appeared in the rankings in both 2013 and 2014. Chica Umino's March Comes In like a Lion held the comic category for three consecutive years, from 2015 through 2017. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotouge won the comic category in 2020, and Jujutsu Kaisen by Gege Akutami took it in 2024. The 2025 comic winner was Hon Nara Uru Hodo by Ao Kojima.

• 7. The E-Book Experiment

  ›

  Media Factory established the Da Vinci Electronic Book Award in 2011, and from 2012 onward it ran under the shorter name E-Book Award. Eligibility extended to all e-book titles distributed during the preceding year, across every genre except adult titles. The grand prize carried one million yen. Rankings were built from an original bestseller list drawn from annual sales data aggregated across 21 e-bookstores, giving the award a data foundation that most literary prizes lacked. A separate readers' prize ran alongside the sales-based categories. The 2013 Grand Prize went to Space Brothers, and in 2014 Attack on Titan won. The award stopped after 2014. Its stated purpose was to sustain momentum for e-books as a format and to prevent the initial boom from fading, but the contest did not outlast the conditions that created it. Da Vinci's November 2026 issue will be its last, and the awards, prizes, and rankings it ran over three decades will close with it.